Maratón Internacional de Panamá 2018

Marathon country #12 done at the Maratón Internacional de Panamá in Ciudad de Panamá. Warm towards the end, but mostly flat with a view of the Casco Viejo, turning around at the Maracana (soccer stadium) headed back through the central business district, Panama Viejo (the original 1519 settlement of Panama) and some condo developments in the east of the city back to the CBD. Starting at 4:30 to combat the heat helped but by the end it was a balmy 85 anyway. Fun fact: Metropolitan National Park is the only rain forest in a world capital.

The start line, wicked early

Good Morning Panamá!

Balboa, the local conquistador, conquisting

Some sort of something on Avenida Paseo del Mar

Kevin runs from the Macdonald’s.

Más ruinas.

Part of the ruins of the original settlement.

Puente Del Rey, in Panamaá Viejo

Parque Mirador Paitilla

Old panama. Still has that old Panama smell.

My excuses suck

Fun story: Dude at the start started yelling at me. I was hat off trying to find the Panamanian flag when the anthem was playing, not listening until I heard “Noriega” and realized he was yelling at me. The last bit of his rant was “down with the Yankee”. I usually wear this shirt to identify me to fellow Americans when running internationally and I’ve never had a problem until today. It’s one dude, whatever. Then I met one of our Marathon Globetrotters who lives in Iceland. She’s also a 50 state finisher (from Iceland, let that sink in) anyway she wasn’t wearing this shirt. Here’s the point of this long ramble, dude knew one thing about me. I’d done a marathon in 50 of the US states. He didn’t even necessarily know I was American. Let alone that I was 7 when we toppled Noriega. Next time you’re making judgements about people (say on the internet or the Bookface Machine) inspect what you actually know about them. That is all. Be easy.